Walking Amongst Them (Among Us, Book 2)

CLARKE

I was thankful for the lack of snow. I had to be, or I'd be miserable about the cold in general. I should have grabbed a jacket. But, it wasn't as though I'd planned on being out this late. Beck's arrival had been more eventful than I could have thought.

He'd come the previous day, but he'd been so out of it that they'd taken him straight to the medical area. This had given me a strange sense of anxiety. When Sam asked me if I wanted to go with him this morning, to see if Beck was okay, I'd wanted to tell him no.

Only because I could tell that Sam didn't want to go on his own, did I agree. While we'd walked over to the medical building he'd grabbed my hand. I told myself that small act was worth the cold walk, and the eyes I seemed to always feel on me these days. Until he dropped my hand to open the door.

I remember inhaling before stepping in, preparing myself before I even knew I needed to.

Beck was in a delicate state, or at least that's what the woman who'd helped Adam a few times said. I couldn't remember her name. I had been trying to only remember the names of people who were necessary. I didn't need any more ghosts than I already had.

Sam and I managed to get Beck back to the apartment style dorm we'd been moved to. Beck didn't seem inclined to trust me, at first. It wasn't until Sam reminded him that I was Kodi's sister that he regarded me with something other than distrust. I wasn't sure what it was, but I went with it.

We got him to the apartment, and then into a bed. He proceeded to sleep most of the afternoon and just after lunch was over he woke up and wanted food. Adam, having gotten the day off from the school, offered to take him to the gardens to see what they could do. We had a few food items here, but we'd been trying to save them for our escape...

I wasn't willing to stop preparing for it. Even if I was preparing for a while.

The air within the walls of this place felt more like a cage than a shield.

I, apparently, was not the only person who felt this way.

While Adam and Beck left to find Beck a meal, I slipped out of our apartment as well. The campus wasn't too big to begin with, and the people who had built the fences had chosen to encompass only the central bit of it.

I had found an old campus map in the building we used for meals. It had been the same building the gym and bookstore were kept in. The bookstore had been mostly combed over. A few writing utensils and unwanted textbooks lay here and there. Whatever college clothing had been here had already been combed over.

But through the leftovers I found the map.

When I came out of the bookstore there was a girl standing across the hallway, standing near the restrooms. We met eyes. For a moment I couldn't place her, I could only marvel at how familiar she seemed. She tilted her head as her eyes widened, but she didn't run.

I realized she was the girl I'd seen across the street when I'd mistakenly returned to the temporary living situation we'd had at the start. She was one of the people watching me.

I was walking towards her, map clutched in my hand. I'm not sure who I surprised more, myself, or the girl. She managed to dash off before I could make it to her, and I thought about following. As I neared where she'd stood, though, I noticed a paper on the floor. I might have ignored it, but in bold letters there was the word 'you' written on it.

It was just creepy enough to interest me.

After reading the paper, I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. When I came out of the bathroom, there was a guy sitting on the bench outside. He had a book in his hands, his eyes focused on the page. I had taken a moment and fixed my shoe lace there. He didn't seem bothered by my presence, barely moving when I propped the offending shoe and its untied lace on the bench next to him.